The great majority of Saturday Night Specials made in the U.S. are produced by a small group of handgun manufacturers located quite close to each other in Southern California. These small, inexpensive handguns figure in thousands of firearm crimes each year.

Here are excerpts from Ring of Fire, a report on these guns and their makers done by the Violence Prevention Research Program.

The Violence Prevention Research Program, located at the U. of California, Davis is involved in work addressing the causes, nature and prevention of firearm violence. Permission to reprint these excerpts is given by Garen Wintemute.